City Hall partners with Gengee, LLC for ‘greener’ efforts

In the past, IU has been admired as one of the five most beautiful campuses in the nation by author Thomas Gaines. Bloomington has been ranked  one of the top ten college towns by the New York Times and number eight in the nation for retirement by Rand McNally.

But the city is now making efforts to garner the title of a “greener” community.

The City of Bloomington partnered with Gengee, LLC — an energy & sustainable building design, consulting and commissioning firm — in August to enhance its green initiatives, starting with city operations efficiency and its Green Building Ordinance.

The goal of the contract with Gengee, LLC is to improve the city’s sustainability efforts by implementing small changes that will ultimately bring reductions in
energy spending.

“We’ve already saved about one-third of what we would spend on energy bills before just by making these small changes,” said Jacqueline Bauer, sustainability coordinator for the City of Bloomington.

The partnership will also foster the movement to ensure new construction is in accordance with Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards and that existing buildings receive LEED Silver ratings.

“The list of things we want to do is not finished yet,” said Ted Mendoza, owner of Gengee, LLC. “We ask ourselves ‘How do we walk down the road to
LEED certification?’”

Before partnering with Gengee, LLC., the Green Building Ordinance — set in motion in 2009 — provided for the city’s first completely green-built neighborhood, EverGreen Village Affordable Housing Subdivision, as well as the formation of Bloomington’s Sustainable City initiative. Bloomington also acquired 150 acres of green space.

“Sustainability doesn’t have an end point,” Bauer said. “Bloomington is doing really well, but it still has a long way to go.”

Because of this, City Hall has been taking even more strides to become greener. New moisture sensors were placed on its irrigation system so that it operates only when soil is dry enough.

A timer was installed for boilers that heat the City Hall building. These timers regulate the amount of time the boilers spend using electricity, which cuts down on the city’s expenses dramatically.

Mendoza said he wants to try incorporating rainwater back into the City Hall building somehow, either using it to flush toilets or power machinery, as well as planting more indigenous vegetation around the city.

Other measures being taken by City Hall staff are the purchase of earth-conscious cleaning products and installation of light-emitting diode light bulbs — when the city’s budget allows — which use a mere 10 percent of the energy a usual fluorescent light bulb would.

“Technology is very cutting edge now,” Mendoza said. “So it’s amazing that we are able to do these things already.”